The services were over in the little church, and the congregation, seeing the line of flame along the shore, came trooping down to see what it could mean. Once having caught an idea of the situation, every one went to work to give assistance. The guardian fires spread farther and farther—all around the harbour, across the point and beyond the mill-stream cove. Children ran to and fro like ants, gathering fuel; the crackling driftwood burned blue and green and golden, lifting high flames to signal defiance to the enemy.
Scorched, smoke-begrimed, weary with toil and excitement, Billy and Sally Shute at last made their way back to where Johann and Captain Saulsby were still talking. A little group had gathered about them, but of these Johann scarcely seemed aware, so intent was he upon what he was saying.
“And they keep telling me always that I must work for the Fatherland here, or go back to aid her at home,” he was saying as Billy came close. “But I answered that this was my Fatherland and I had no other. Yet they keep repeating that a man can have but one, and if it is once Germany so must it always be Germany.”
“But you were born here,” said the old sailor, “and your father was banished from his own country.”
“Yes, he was driven out, but he longed always to return, perhaps because he knew he never could. He wished that I should go back there to live after he died; I did go, but it was only for a year.”
“Didn’t you like it, Joe?” asked one of the fishermen lightly.
Johann regarded him with solemn, earnest eyes.
“I thought at first I would like it,” he answered. “The order appealed to me, and the lack of waste and the doing everything so well. But in a little I saw that it was too well done, too perfect. Does Nature never waste? Did the dear Gott make us perfect? No, but they try to think they can make you so in Germany.” He was silent a moment, then his last words broke from him almost with a cry. “To be perfect you must be a thing—not a man. And in Germany they would make you a thing, they would break your heart, they would trample on your soul!”
“And they have been over here trying to get you to help them?” the old Captain questioned gently.
“Yes, they keep saying do this, or do that; it is for the Fatherland. ‘That lighthouse, should an accident happen there and some of the ships go on the rocks, it will be so many less against the Fatherland.’ Or, ‘That wireless station at Rockford, it is working to our harm; help to destroy it for the Fatherland.’ I sunk my boat that they might no longer try to send me on their errands. I have tried to flee from Appledore, but I could not go, there are my little house and my good friends here, and the wide blue sea that I love so much. Then at last it came to their saying that if I have not the spirit to help them here I must go back and fight for Germany. I thought and thought, night and day I had nothing else in my unhappy mind, and at last, partly because I thought it was my duty, partly because I was afraid, I said I would go.”